Old Town Kuna has the city's only true wood double-hung windows from the 1900s through 1950s, under its lone stand of mature elms and silver maples, with a stretch close to the Union Pacific mainline. The screens here are unlike anything else in Kuna and they need treating accordingly.
A period wood-frame screen is a joined timber frame with mesh tacked or splined into it, and it is both more fragile and more valuable than a modern aluminium unit. The joints loosen, the timber dries and splits, and old mesh, whether original bronze, galvanised or early fibreglass, is brittle. These do not come out of an opening casually and they do not tolerate pressure. We assess each one and handle it by hand, and where a frame is too loose to move safely we say so and leave it.
The mature elms and silver maples overhead drop pollen, seed and leaf fragments that most of Kuna never sees, and the canopy supports aphids whose honeydew makes the mesh sticky enough to hold everything else that arrives. On the stretch nearest the Union Pacific mainline there is also diesel soot and fine rail grit, which is oily and dark and works into the weave. That combination is the dirtiest screen loading in the city and the most delicate to remove.
Old mesh cannot be scrubbed. Bronze and galvanised mesh corrode and hold stains within the metal itself, and early fibreglass goes chalky and tears. So the honest outcome on some Old Town screens is considerably better rather than clear, and we will say which yours are before working on them. Where a screen is genuinely at the end of its life, rescreening a period frame is worth doing properly rather than replacing the whole unit, and it is a separate conversation.
Screen cleaning is +$50 added to a window clean, and both memberships include one free screen clean a year. Old Town screens take longer per unit than modern aluminium ones because each is handled individually and some cannot be removed at all, so we would rather look at what you have and tell you what is realistic than quote a house of period screens sight unseen.
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Usually, carefully, and sometimes not. A period wood frame has joints that loosen and timber that dries and splits, and old mesh is brittle. We assess each one, handle it by hand, and where a frame is too loose to move safely we say so and leave it rather than damaging it.
Better rather than clear, in many cases. Those meshes corrode and hold staining within the metal itself, so the discolouration is in the material rather than on it. We will tell you which of your screens will genuinely clear and which will only improve.
Diesel soot and fine rail grit, if you are on the stretch nearest the Union Pacific mainline. It is oily and dark and works into the weave, and combined with elm and maple debris and aphid honeydew from the canopy it is the dirtiest screen loading in Kuna.
Not necessarily. Rescreening a period frame keeps the character and is worth doing properly, whereas swapping in a modern aluminium unit on a 1900s to 1950s wood double-hung rarely looks right. It is a separate conversation from cleaning.
Because each screen is handled individually rather than batched, and some cannot be removed at all. We would rather look at what you actually have and tell you what is realistic than quote a house of period screens sight unseen.
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